


Suddenly you see someone in a different light

by TheMuchTooMerryMaiden



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Schmoop, cross-dressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:04:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden/pseuds/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn't the first time that John had dressed up as a woman...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suddenly you see someone in a different light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sherlockmadetea](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sherlockmadetea).



> Written for [sherlockmadetea](http://sherlockmadetea.tumblr.com/) as part of the [johnlockchallenges](http://johnlockchallenges.tumblr.com/) gift exchange. The original prompt was:
>
>> Sherlock and John have to dress like women for a case. If, however, the creator wishes to have free reign with Johnlock, I am very happy with that as well, since I enjoy everything that is Johnlock. Any rating.

Hard though it was to believe this wasn't the first time that John had dressed up as a woman. It would have been nice if it was some sort of exciting tale of derring-do but it wasn't, it was, unfortunately the sort of thing that you ended up doing from time to time in the Junior Officer's Mess and also at Rugby Club bashes. When he'd done it then though the object had been to provoke humour and it had been crass and something that he would hate other people to know about even if he could blame the stupidity of drunken youth. Now his object was to actually pass as a woman and he had no idea where to start.

Sherlock had bought him clothes, everything, every layer from a smart jacket through to a set of underwear which made John feel peculiar when he only thought about it, let alone how it would make him feel when he actually wore it. Still they were on a deadline; he needed to get this done. The first job was to shave and shave thoroughly, that shouldn't be too difficult after all, he would get through this the way he got through every hard job, by plugging away at it one step at a time.

When Sherlock walked into his room fifteen minutes later John dropped the mascara wand he was trying to use and ended up with a long line of black down the right hand side of his face,

"Bloody Hell, Sherlock, don't make me jump like that," he stammered out trying without much hope of success to cover up his reaction to the vision in front of him. Sherlock had done his hair in to what John thought of as an Audrey Hepburn style, straightened and parted and swept across his forehead and clipped up at the back. It was so fine and John couldn't get the image of removing those hair clips and running his fingers through the shining strands out of his head. And that was just the start. Sherlock's figure, the slender length of him and his narrow waist were now emphasised by perfectly proportioned breasts and god knows how he'd achieved it by hips that suddenly flared. God, and his legs, they went on forever, shapely and covered in the sheerest black stockings, at least John found himself hoping they were stockings and then hurriedly stopping thinking any such thing. The skirt he was wearing was brief to say the least, it would be daring if he really was a woman, it was downright chancy for a bloke and didn't that make the whole thing worse.

John had never deluded himself that his flatmate was less than devastatingly attractive and he'd almost become inured to the fact that everyone thought they were an item but just now, he would happily have agreed with anyone who said that he fancied his flatmate and he didn't really want to think about the fact that it took Sherlock being dressed as a woman to make him admit it. And now he realised that he'd been gawking at Sherlock for an unfeasibly long time with everything he was thinking undoubtedly on show for Sherlock to read from his face. So that was it, not only did John now know how he felt so did Sherlock and just to make the whole thing fucking perfect they were going to a club together to pose as a lesbian couple and try and tempt a serial killer out of hiding.

"Come on, John," Sherlock said and for the life in him John couldn't decide whether he was actually hearing the indulgent note in Sherlock's voice or if it existed only in his mind. "You'll need to take that make-up off; it's a little ... unsubtle. The trick to successful drag is to actually use make-up like a woman does not to use it in an attempt to cover up the fact that you're a man. Go and wash it off and while you're in the bathroom make sure that you've shaved your legs, chest and under-arms, there will be dancing after all!"

The easiest thing, John decided was to just do as he was told. He picked up his shaving kit and high-tailed it into the bathroom.

Emerging fifteen minutes later, John felt ridiculously ‘on show’ given that all he’d done was shave rather more of himself than usual. Sherlock was pacing, a feat in John’s bedroom which wasn’t exactly enormous,

“Right John,” he said, “that’s much better.” He paused looking appraisingly at John, “Don’t take this the wrong way but I think you’d better let me put your make up on, and probably dress you.” John was prepared to agree in the matter of the make-up but he tended to feel that he had rather more experience in the matter of women’s clothes than Sherlock did and he said so. Sherlock responded easily with a breezy, I-know-best tone, “Removing women’s clothes? I would agree, but in the case of putting them on you really don’t have my practice.” And suddenly John’s mind was a riot of images of Sherlock in drag. This time when he pulled himself together there was no mistaking the indulgent look on Sherlock’s face and in the end it was by far easier to agree with him. “Right, strip off,” he ordered and John found himself starting to do just that, and then pausing infinitesimally when he realised what he was doing. He continued quickly but he knew there was no hope that Sherlock would have missed that telling pause.

In short order he was stood naked in front of Sherlock, meeting his friend’s gaze. He was trying hard not to come off as either defensive or defiant, trying to appear as though being naked in front of Sherlock was an everyday occurrence. He really wasn’t sure it was working. Sherlock handed him a pair of flesh coloured, well ‘budgie smugglers’ was, John believed, the term and John found himself looking at them a little nonplussed for a moment before Sherlock made an impatient noise,

“Put them on, John we need you safely and securely tucked out of the way,”

John felt himself blush, an honest to god, full on, full body blush not helped by hearing a suppressed sigh from Sherlock,

“Really, you have nothing to be embarrassed about,” Sherlock added and John was sure or very nearly sure now that he was doing it on purpose, just not quite sure enough to challenge him on it. He put the very brief briefs on ‘safely and securely tucking himself out of the way’, trying desperately hard not to think about anything that might make that more difficult.

Next Sherlock gave him a pair of panties. Black lacy panties, just slightly more extensive than the budgie smugglers, once they were on, John was sure they would look like all he was wearing. He put them on and saw that he had been right. The effect was ... distracting, especially when he was confronted by the very clear image of Sherlock wearing the same thing. He tried desperately to think of something else before he ended up putting the underwear to more of a test than it could perhaps deal with.

“Turn around,” Sherlock ordered and John did, trying desperately to think of something to say, feeling like even more of an idiot than he normally did around Sherlock, but the only words that occurred to him would, if uttered, have caused him to have to run away to Tibet and become a silent monk just from sheer embarrassment. Sherlock reached round him and it took John a little while to work out what the garment was. That was because it was a corset. A corset. And suddenly he had to ask,

“Sherlock,” his voice squeaked slightly and he cleared his throat, blushing again, “are you ... I mean is that how ...” again he cleared his throat, “are you wearing one of these?”

“Yes, it’s just to give a bit of definition to the waist, the narrowing of the waist will make it seem like you have more ... womanly ... hips, you can see how it works on me, I won’t make it too tight.”

“Yeah,” John replied, “Yep, I can ... see that.”

Sherlock was pulling the corset what seemed to John to be unfeasibly tight, never mind ‘not too tight’, but it was a surprisingly secure and on the whole not unpleasant feeling. At least it was for now, John found himself wondering how uncomfortable it would become before the end of the night. Sherlock was rummaging around in the things he’d handed to John earlier and John found himself wondering what he was looking for.

“Must have left them in my room,” he muttered before sweeping out of the room. John was left standing in the middle of the room feeling, well he wasn’t quite able to categorise how he was feeling, there were far too many things going on in his head. _What the hell must I look like?_ he wondered and walked over to the mirror in the wardrobe. _Well the corset does exactly what Sherlock said it would,_ he thought, _but I’m still going to make one hell of a dumpy girl, people are going to wonder what on earth a stunner like her is doing with me_. The thought was strangely dispiriting to him and he sighed.

“What’s the matter?” Sherlock asked as he came back into the room with at least five breasts in his hand and John thought for about the fiftieth time since he’d moved into 221B _how is this my life now?_

“I was just thinking that we’re going to look horribly mismatched, you’re your usual stunning self and I’m going to be every bit as much a ‘lumpen mass’ as I always am.” It was said with a smile but Sherlock as was his wont cut straight to the heart of the matter,

“You’re underestimating my skills, you will be stunning! Right let’s try these and find a pair that give you the right proportions. Put that bra on will you,” this last said with an air of distraction as he appeared to weigh a couple of breasts against each other, looking as though he might start juggling with them.

John reached for the bra and found in short order that reaching behind himself to fasten the damn thing was as difficult as unfastening them had been when he was a teenager. He gritted his teeth and tried again.

“Oh, sorry,” Sherlock said suddenly noticing him struggling, “it’s probably the shoulder injury, I doubt if that was one of the ranges of motion that they worked on in your rehab.”

“Strangely, no,” John responded.

 

Fifteen minutes later John would have had to confess that he would almost not have recognised himself. He was wearing a short skirt, every bit as short as Sherlock’s, sheer black stockings (it had to be stockings Sherlock explained because tights wouldn’t work with the corset and the complexities of the underwear he was wearing), a high necked but sleeveless black silk top (it had to cover the scarring) and a translucent, well he didn’t know what to call it because jacket didn’t seem to match with something that was so ... there and not there. 

“Make-up next,” Sherlock announced and confusingly left the room. He returned almost immediately with the stand chair from the living room and what looked like a fisherman’s tackle box,

“What’s that?” John asked.

Sherlock rolled his eyes,

“Make-up like I said, sit down.”

John sat down confronting himself in the mirror. He looked ridiculous, he looked like him in a dress, this was never going to work, he was sure of it and he said as much,

“You’ll be surprised,” Sherlock murmured, “wait until I’ve done your make-up, it will make all the difference.” He pushed John’s head to one side seemingly to get a better look at his jaw line, “the bloke who taught me how to put make-up on worked at an undertakers, he could only really put the stuff on effectively if you were lying down ... I don’t think you’re going to need foundation, you have a lovely even skin tone ... a bit of shading ... lips and eyes, cheekbones and you’ll be good to go.”

It took a surprisingly short amount of time before John was looking at ... well ... a female version of himself. He knew nothing had changed but somehow everything had changed and without feeling like he was wearing a bloody mask. Delicate, look for it and you wouldn’t see it shading on his cheekbones had managed somehow to down play the masculinity of his jaw and the eye-shadow, eye-liner and mascara had done amazing things for his eyes. He’d drawn the line when Sherlock had wanted to pluck his eyebrows but Sherlock had managed to darken and shape them with a small brush until they looked well ... elegant. Sherlock had decided on a shade of lipstick that very nearly matched the colour of John’s own lips, just very marginally more red and then he’d topped that off with a sheen of lip gloss. The only problem now John thought is my hair and Sherlock it would seem was already considering that,

“Your hair is very short,” he remarked, still studying him.

John was surprised, Sherlock did not often state the bleeding obvious, usually, in fact, he was very acid with other people when they did,

“Can’t argue with that,” John agreed, as Sherlock came closer and (for fuck’s sake) ran his fingers through his hair. John was reasonably sure that even an hour ago if Sherlock had done that it would not have had this effect on him and he was also sure that if he thought about the fact that Sherlock was all unknown testing the containment properties of the budgie smugglers then all would be lost so as a distraction he started mentally reciting the names and locations of the cranial nerves.

“I should have been more prepared,” Sherlock mused still running his fingers rhythmically through John’s sandy hair, “I could have got some extensions or at least a hair-piece.”

_V Trigeminal serves the lower and upper mandibles and the cheeks ... look at his bloody cheekbones. Oh, God, Watson pull yourself together, VI Abducens serving the lateral rectus muscle of the eye ... what colour are his eyes, Oh, fuck._

John realised that Sherlock had asked him a question but that he had absolutely no idea what it was and he briefly remembered reading a humorous article a million years ago that talked about the stages of obsession, one of which had been getting so obsessed that the object of your fixation could walk past you in the street and you’d be so wound up thinking about them that you wouldn’t notice that they were actually there. It didn’t seem so funny anymore.

“Sorry, what?” he asked,

“Oh, come on John, focus for god’s sake, I asked how you felt about the flapper girl look?”

“I have absolutely no opinion,” John said truthfully. Sherlock sighed,

“You might make a bit of an effort, John.” 

“Sorry,” John stopped speaking, it had been on the tip of his tongue to say, _I’m a bit distracted_ , but the idea that Sherlock might ask him in what way effectively stopped his tongue.

“Yes, parted, slicked down, with kiss curls, it’ll help to distract from the masculinity of your brow,” and Sherlock was off again returning with a bottle of something which he poured onto John’s hair, it was cold and wet and it felt peculiar and continued to feel peculiar as Sherlock massaged it into his hair and scalp. A few minutes work with a comb and a little more work to create a row of tiny kiss-curls and Sherlock was leaning back to admire his handy work. “Yes, that’s it exactly. Right, we don’t want to arrive too early and we should try not to look too much like a couple or we might have trouble getting in, looking like two girls, with money, on the pull should mean that we get in with no difficulty, once we’re in then we can behave like a couple, OK?”

 

Getting in had been as easy as Sherlock had predicted and John could see why, by the time that Sherlock had finished with them both they made a good looking couple that was for sure. Sherlock had made him practice walking in the thankfully quite low heels he’d picked out and then they’d set off. They’d taken a bit of time to decide on what their names should be, John had suggested Josephine and Daphne but Sherlock hadn’t got the reference and in the end they’d settled on Helen and Rebecca, although it took them a couple of minutes to remember who was who. The hardest part had been convincingly chatting like the other girls in the line, small talk was anathema to Sherlock and John was so concerned that he might say something that gave away what he was thinking that he could barely string a sentence together without it sounding like a loosely connected set of double entendres. 

Once in the club, John headed straight for the bar, he really wasn’t sure it was a good idea but he was very sure he needed a drink. He was about to order a double scotch when he realised that wouldn’t be very feminine even if that was what he wanted, so he stammered out an order for what his last girl friend had habitually drunk and a coke for Sherlock. When he got it, it was horribly sweet. Sherlock sauntered up and it was peculiar because he was a woman, he wasn’t Sherlock dressed as a woman, he was Helen, he looked softer, he looked more delicate and his shy smile was not an expression that John had ever seen on his friend. And the peculiar thing, the really peculiar thing as far as John was concerned was that ‘Helen’ did nothing for him, nothing at all. To say it was confusing would be the understatement of the century John felt. On any objective scale Helen was gorgeous and it wasn’t the height difference, he’d dated many women who were taller than him over the years, it’s just that Sherlock as Helen didn’t do anything for him whereas he’d been half hard at the thought of Sherlock since the man had walked into his room that afternoon. In the end John decided that it was too much to think about and ordered a double whisky, femininity be damned.

 

The killer they were after went after same sex couples, particularly lesbian couples who didn’t try to hide their relationship, which meant, John realised when Sherlock leaned towards him where they sat and kissed him, that they would have to not hide their supposed relationship. It was a disappointing kiss, good marks for technical, not so good on artistic merit, John found himself thinking almost hysterically. Sherlock pulled back slightly, resting his forehead against John’s, looking John was sure like he was whispering ‘sweet nothings’,

“Good grief, John, can’t you manage better than that, we’re not going to convince anyone like this, can’t you at least imagine I’m a woman?”

John sighed,

“That’s really not the problem, Sherlock,” he murmured,

“Then what is?”

“I’m not sure,” John lied, “let’s try again.” John cleared his mind of thoughts of Helen and let himself think about kissing Sherlock, let himself think about Sherlock’s hands in his hair that afternoon, let himself think about Sherlock in his tight constricting underwear and began to kiss him in full earnest. Sherlock reacted very satisfactorily. John could sense a moment of shock, a brief hesitancy and then a relaxation as John gently parted Sherlock’s lips and began to taste and tease, stroking Sherlock’s tongue with his own and finishing up with a gentle suck on Sherlock’s gorgeous bottom lip. When John pulled back feeling that he had well and truly crossed his own personal Rubicon, Sherlock was the one to lean on him and his breathless lingering, ‘Oh, John!’ stirred a fierce possessiveness in John that made him feel like roaring and beating his chest and chasing away anyone who so much as looked at Sherlock. “Let’s dance,” John said and swigged back the end of his drink and lead Sherlock onto the small and already crowded dance floor. 

The dancing was even more electric. They started off with a fast number which made John feel all his lack of dancing skill as he watched Sherlock’s sinuous moves. Sherlock seemed to John to have taken to heart the old saying ‘dance like no one’s watching’, but after a little while John realised that was wrong, Sherlock was dancing like the one person who was important was watching. Time and again he met John’s eyes swaying closer and closer to him until as the music changed to a much slower number he was in a position to melt into John’s arms and then to pull John against him. Through the length of the slower dance they mostly just held each other, staring into each others’ eyes. To John it seemed like Sherlock was looking directly into his soul. There was a questioning quality to his gaze, as if he were asking _Is this, am I, what you want, John?_ In response John could only hold him more tightly, hands drifting possessively down below Sherlock’s waist pulling them tight together and relishing the feeling. 

When the dance ended they lingered on the dance floor as it cleared before almost simultaneously they realised that everyone else had moved to sit down or to go to the bar. John thought Sherlock looked almost sad before he hurriedly looked away and pulled John from the dance floor. 

Sherlock dragged them both to a very visible area of seating and they spent the next ten minutes kissing. 

To say that John didn’t know what to do about everything would be a massive understatement, a really fucking enormous understatement. When he’d realised the way Sherlock was looking at him, John had written it off to the way that Sherlock could turn emotions on and off particularly when there was a case involved. He remembered the tears Sherlock produced for the ‘widow’ in the Janus Cars case, but the longer he observed Sherlock the more sure he became that there was nothing fake about what Sherlock was feeling and he had no idea what to do about it. It had been one thing to confront the fact that he was in love with Sherlock, he could deal with unrequited love, he’d done that more than often enough. Requited love, requited love from a man who had reputedly never been in love with anyone before? That was a whole different ball game. John berated himself, trying with limited success to stop picturing himself playing with Sherlock’s balls ... kissing them perhaps ... gently drawing them, one at a time into his mouth ... driving Sherlock to screaming point ... _No, Watson, for god’s sake pull yourself together man!_ Suddenly he felt Sherlock become tense in his arms,

“Have you seen something,” John whispered in Sherlock’s ear,

“Yes,” he murmured in reply, “keep alert, I think we’ve attracted attention...”

 

Of course they got their man, or rather woman. It hadn’t even been difficult, the mad ones were often the easiest to catch, especially since you had a good chance that the opportunity to explain their view of how the world should be to an audience would result in a confession of the ‘And I’d do it again, they deserved it!’ kind.

John had always loved the nearly ecstatic way in which Sherlock behaved when he’d solved a case. He loved it even more this evening. A few strands of Sherlock’s straightened hair had escaped from their clip during the struggle and were tickling at his cheek, drawing John’s attention repeatedly to Sherlock’s frankly beautiful mouth and his eyes positively glowed. Most priceless of all had been the way in which Lestrade had looked Sherlock up and down from behind, before he’d realised who it was. John even thought he’d caught Lestrade giving Sherlock a speculative look after he knew who he was and that had felt less good and caused John to hurry matters forward to the point where he could bundle Sherlock into a cab.

They sat close in the cab, knees almost touching and in a tight, expectant atmosphere that made everything seem significant, each imperceptible lean towards each other, every time they were slightly pushed towards each other as the cab went round a corner. By the time they got to Baker Street John was as impatient as he’d ever been. When the cab drew up, John thrust a hand full of notes at the driver, completely heedless of how much he was over-tipping and grabbed Sherlock’s hand and pulled him out of the cab towards the door of 221. 

When they got to the door-step John drew Sherlock into his arms and kissed him. It didn’t occur to him that it was a chancy thing to do, nothing beyond the desire to kiss Sherlock again had gone through his mind and after their evening it didn’t occur to John that Sherlock might not feel the same. And it wasn’t even that Sherlock wasn’t responsive, he was, but it just wasn’t the same, there was a hesitancy about him that hadn’t been there in the club. John pulled away,

“I’m sorry,” he said hurriedly, knowing that he had miss-read the situation and feeling a complete sinking feeling, _how can losing something I’ve only thought I had for three hours feel this bad?_ John wondered.

“No, don’t,” Sherlock replied, “Don’t apologise, please,” and then he leaned down slightly and kissed John, gently and John couldn’t help feeling regretfully. “You never have to apologise to me. I just ... need to think ... to decide ... if I can be what you want me to be.”

John bit back his gut reaction, _You are everything I want, everything_ , he felt almost dizzy with it all, with the knowledge that what he did and said in the next few minutes could make the difference between the two of them being miserable or happy, especially when he couldn’t for the life in him work out what was going on,

“Well,” he began, “let’s at least get inside, let’s not discuss this on the doorstep.”

Sherlock nodded in agreement and turned and unlocked the door and the two of them walked quietly upstairs, Sherlock leading the way and John following him. John expected that Sherlock would want to change, to get out of his ‘drag’ but surprisingly, Sherlock sat down in his usual chair and pulled his legs up in a very feminine way that John couldn’t help but feel didn’t suit him one little bit. John settled for kicking off his shoes (the fact that they were flat-ish didn’t make them comfortable) and slumping down in his armchair. John was frantically trying to work out what the right thing to say was, what he could say that would carry them over this break in the road, he was sure there was something, he just didn’t know what it was. For his own part Sherlock seemed to be doing some pretty intense thinking himself. He stood up suddenly and took one, two steps until he was stood in front of John’s chair. John looked up, swallowing nervously, wondering what conclusion Sherlock had reached, hoping with everything he had that Sherlock had decided that what they could have was worth taking a chance on.

Sherlock dropped to his knees and John watched him re-assume the ‘Helen’ persona in an instant as he looked down at John’s knee, almost shyly, before he spoke,

“I can, John,” he said, swallowing nervously, “I can be this person, if that’s what you need,” he paused swallowing again, “if that’s what it takes for us to be together.” Sherlock looked up and for once it was John was the one who could read everything in another person’s face. John leaned forward and reached to cup Sherlock’s chin in his hand, stroking his thumb gently across his bottom lip, the hint of stubble making everything feel that bit more charged,

“You,” he paused, clearing his suddenly tight throat a little, “you bloody idiot, I don’t want Helen, I want you, I think I’ve wanted you for months. I swear to you Sherlock, I don’t want you to change, I don’t want you to pretend, I just want you to let me love you exactly as you are. Can you do that? Can we do that?”

The momentary heartache and worry was worth it to watch Sherlock’s familiar, ‘I have it!’ face and know that his realisation was how much John loved him,

“Of course we can do that!”

“Then for god’s sake go and take off those ridiculous clothes and the bloody make-up, I want to kiss you properly!”


End file.
